Three in a Bed : The Benefits of Sharing Your Bed With Your Baby [Paperback]

Deborah Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 1999

Until relatively recently, babies weren't sent off to sleep alone in their cribs where they often cry themselves to sleep--only to wake, needing to be fed or comforted until they can fall asleep again. This book offers an alternative: taking your baby to bed with you. Drawing on up-to-date and startling new evidence, the author shows how babies who sleep with their parents benefit by getting virtually a full night's sleep. Three in a Bed also includes a fully revised chapter based on new research on the SIDS debate and includes practical information on safety in the bed, how to sustain your sex life, and how to deal with the moment when the baby leaves his parents' bed. The approached advocated in this book can change the life of any parent struggling with getting their baby to sleep through the night.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Deborah Jackson is a freelance writer who has contributed to many newspapers and magazines including The Independent, The Daily Mail, and The Guardian. She writes a regular column for Natural Parent.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (September 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158234051X
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340517
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Doctors opinion, May 17, 2001

By 

John (Zuni, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three in a Bed : The Benefits of Sharing Your Bed With Your Baby (Paperback)

As a Physician and Parent (of a 22 month old), I am very gratefull for this book. Please do not listen to the reviewer from Toronto who labeled this book as dangerous! I am a Family Physician who has looked into this issue long and hard. The "experts" who promote fear and guilt to mother's who are following their biological instincts to nurture their babies, are not 'experts" at all. The truth of the matter is that most Physicians and other Health Care providers know very little of the facts related to co-sleeping, and instead perpetuate the same ill-informed opinions passed on from their unenlightened mentors or their own families. This book presents in very clear terms the benefits of co sleeping that the majority of the world already knows about. For the last 100 years in this country, we have told mothers to ignore their hard wired instincts "for the benefit of the child". In addition to breastfeeding, co-sleeping became an abnormallity, and was viewed as a "primitive", "uncivilized" relic from our cave-dwelling past. Fortunately, the tide of breastfeeding is on the upswing despite the corporate formula interests involved. Today, even the conservative American Academy of Peditricians reccommends breast feeding till at least 1 year old (the World Health Organization reccommends at least 2 years). I hope that some day the irrational fears associated with co sleeping will gain this same type of informed acceptance. I think this book is a great addition to the growing body of EVIDENCE to counter the "fear of smothering or spoiling your child" brainwashing that we in the western world have in the past accepted without question.

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE!, April 18, 2001

By 

Nicole LoBue (Tracy, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three in a Bed : The Benefits of Sharing Your Bed With Your Baby (Paperback)

My daughter was maybe a day old when I brought her to bed with me in the hospital because she wouldn't stop crying. The nurse came in and said, "they learn that 'trick' right away." I can't tell you how many health care professionals told me that my several-day-old infant was manipulating me or playing tricks on me and how I was the parent and had to take control before it got out of hand. How rediculous was that?

I wish I'd read this book when I was pregnant. May daughter is 19 months old now and when she was an infant, I made sure she didn't get into the "bad habit" of sleeping with us. I even got her out of our bedroom and into her own by the time she was two months old so as not to get her too used to being even in the same room with us. I was very proud of myself for doing the "right thing." While I read this book I couldn't help but feel guilty because I'd given into to advice from well-meaning doctors, family members and friends even though it went against my own instincts. I even cried.

My toddler now sleeps on a mattress on the floor in our room and climbs into bed with us whenever she wishes. No more spending and hour and a half in the middle of the night trying to get her back to sleep after a nightmare and no more being frightened and alone in the dark for her. I'm selling the cradle and crib and the next child will sleep with us from the start. I'm going to buy one of these books for every expecting parent I know!

The life-changing message for me was to trust my instincts and do what feels right. Nevermind what everyone else says you should do.

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book -- it's about more than just cosleeping., January 16, 2000

By 

C. Skeen (Somewhere near Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three in a Bed : The Benefits of Sharing Your Bed With Your Baby (Paperback)

This book is wonderful. Even though I'd already read a lot about the subjects that it tackles (cosleeping, breastfeeding, child-rearing, among others), and already practice a lot of what it advocates, I found it to be eye-opening and mind-opening in so many unexpected ways. It is well-written and very well-researched -- and thus more worthwhile and more convincing than some books/articles on the same subject which are too shrill, propagandistic, and/or New Age-y for my taste. Even if you don't think you're interested in cosleeping, but are interested in breastfeeding, or in rearing a happy and secure child, this book has something for you. I only wish I'd discovered it sooner! Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down (and more so than the previous reviewer, I found the first half of the book both fascinating and informative -- perhaps even more so than the later "practical" chapters).